But Deliver Us from Evil

by Lauri Kubuitsile

  At the fork in the path where they need to turn towards the cave, they stop. Nthebolang is scared, too scared to go on. All that happened in the cave the last time comes flooding into her mind.

  ‘I don’t think I can do this,’ she says.

  ‘I need the label on the crate,’ Beatrice says. ‘My plan won’t work without it. I was stupid to have taken it there. We must be brave. No one will be there this time. We’ll be fine.’

  ‘The dead will be there. //Gaunab will be there,’ Nthebolang says.

  As she says this, they hear movements and see a light moving below them. Beatrice pulls Nthebolang off the path and they move behind a patch of thorn bush. They wait silently. Whoever is coming will pass right in front of them, but the narrow path offers them no other place to hide. It seems clear that the people are coming up from the cave. If Beatrice and Nthebolang remain still, no one will see them where they are hiding, or so they hope.

  The light comes closer and soon a group of people passes directly in front of them. Beatrice and Nthebolang hold their breath. There are three of them and they are speaking freely to one another, assumimg no one else could be out in the hills at night.

  ‘Everything is set.’ It’s the voice of an old woman.

  ‘I believe you now,’ a younger woman replies. ‘It has been going perfectly. Once she’s dead, Motsumi will be mine. I’ll have everything I’m entitled to.’

  They’re speaking in Setswana, so only Nthebolang understands.

  ‘Yes, you’ll have everything you deserve,’ says the old woman. She looks towards the thorn bushes where Nthebolang and Beatrice are hiding, smiles, and then looks ahead again.

  The man walking with them doesn’t speak. What the two women don’t know is that his face wears an expression of distaste. It is clear that he does not like these women. In the moonlight Nthebolang can see the hatred written on his face. He’s not their ally; money is likely his only incentive.

  When they’re sure the three have crossed over to the other side of the mountain, Beatrice says, ‘Did you see them clearly?’

  ‘Yes, it’s who I suspected. The old woman you know, Mmapitse. The young one is called Seabe, and the man … the man is the one who killed my father – Barobi, the one I told you about. He’s the worst, the deadliest of the three.’

  ‘And what did they say? You heard something. I can see it in your face.’

  Nthebolang knows whom they were speaking about. ‘I … I think Seabe was talking of killing me.’

  Beatrice shakes her head slightly as if to rid herself of thoughts she doesn’t want.

  ‘I told you danger was around him, around this man you have lain with. Now everything is very urgent. We must leave this place as soon as we can.’

  Nthebolang leans against a tree. It’s all too much for her. She wants to tell Beatrice the truth. She doesn’t want to keep her secret, though she knows she must. But it’s more than that. Beatrice has been right every time. Is she right about Motsumi too?

  ‘Come, we must go,’ says Beatrice. ‘We’ll go slowly. I can’t get what I need without you.’

  They move slowly to the cave. Inside, Beatrice lights a candle and they quickly retrieve the piece of crate and get out. Once outside, they rest. Nthebolang is exhausted and wonders how she will make it back, but knows she must.

  It’s more than being tired from the walk. Nthebolang is so tired of sorting things out in her mind only to have them wrecked by further knowledge of what’s going on in Ntsweng. She doesn’t want to know anything else. She must leave this place and soon. Seabe will not kill her because she will be gone.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  They arrive back at the mission station and Beatrice insists that Nthebolang comes inside the house with her. ‘You look tired. Let me make you some tea. The climb was too much; it was all too much, I think.’

  Nthebolang checks on Elizabeth before sitting down at the wooden table.

  ‘I knew that old woman was evil,’ says Nthebolang. ‘She goes to the cave to dance with the dead even as she pretends to be a Christian every Sunday.’

  Beatrice sets the teacup down. Nthebolang drinks; it feels good and it helps to calm her.

  ‘Barobi was treating the boy who died after he was wounded in battle. The one they say was bewitched, Motsumi’s brother,’ says Nthebolang. ‘They killed him, I know it, and everyone thinks it was Motsumi.’

  ‘And the young woman?’ Beatrice asks.

  ‘Seabe. She’s called Seabe – she’s Motsumi’s wife.’

  ‘You said they wanted to kill you, but why?’

  ‘Because of Motsumi. I stand in Seabe’s way just as the boy Baatweng did. I stand in the way of what she wants. Now she wants to bewitch me … to kill me.’

  Beatrice pats Nthebolang’s hand. She looks away for a moment in silence and then she says, ‘Nothing will harm you. I promise. I’ve told you before that I protect the ones I love. Always.’

  ‘How can you be sure? They’ve already placed charms here, things I luckily found and destroyed. Maybe they have placed others that are working even now. Maybe we haven’t been vigilant enough. The medicine could be anywhere.’

  Just then the door opens and Thomas Milner enters the main room of the house. He’s caught off guard. He quickly rearranges his dishevelled clothes and runs his hands through his silky hair to sort its wildness.

  ‘I’m surprised to see you two awake.’ He looks them over. ‘And dressed.’

  ‘I was afraid, all alone here. Nthebolang came to sleep with me,’ says Beatrice. ‘But just now we thought we heard something outside near the storeroom. We were frightened.’

  ‘I’m just from there. There’s nothing. Nthebolang, it’s better you go back now and sleep in the servant’s hut. It’s already well past midnight. We all need some rest.’

  Nthebolang heads to the hut and locks the door behind her. She sits down at the table. There’s no way she can sleep that night or any night until she’s away from Ntsweng. She takes out her prayer book, the only weapon she feels she has. She needs God to help her. She kneels at the window, looking up to the sky where she hopes God looks down on her, though she feels nothing that gives evidence of that. She recites one prayer after the other, whispering them so that she won’t wake her mother. She tries to take strength from the words but fails. Relief is nowhere that night.

  She doesn’t know how long it is before she hears the horses, but it’s only a few minutes after hearing their hooves that she hears a scream.

  Nthebolang rushes to the window and, in the darkness, she sees three riders on horseback and others already inside the mission compound. Her mother comes to the window next to her, wrapped in a blanket.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she asks.

  ‘Some men are here.’ Then she sees the outline of one of the riders in the thin light, the outline of a big white man holding a rifle.

  ‘You wait here, Mme,’ Nthebolang says. ‘Lock the door. Don’t come out until I come to you.’

  She quietly leaves the servant’s hut and, staying in the shadows, makes her way to the back door of the main house and slips inside.

  ‘Churchman! Come out of the house!’ a man with a thick Afrikaans accent shouts from the front. ‘Come out now or we’ll shoot!’

  Nthebolang sneaks to the front room and there is Beatrice with Elizabeth, crouching under the table in the dark. Nthebolang climbs under the table with them.

  ‘Where’s Thomas?’ she asks.

  ‘He’s in the bedroom, loading his gun,’ Beatrice says. She seems to be smiling, although Nthebolang cannot be sure in the darkness.

  A shot rings through the air outside. The horsemen are getting impatient.

  ‘Come out, Churchman, or we’ll come in!’

  Nthebolang crawls to the window just as Thomas comes out of the bedroom with a lamp and his rifle. She counts four men. There might be others outside the gate; she can see shadows moving there. She wonders if people in the village saw them arrive, and if they
will come and rescue them. The mission house is set away from the village, so the Boers could easily have arrived from the west without being seen, especially given the late hour. They seem to be on their own.

  Thomas opens the door, setting the lamp on the wall of the veranda. In its glow Nthebolang can see that he’s terrified.

  ‘What do you want? Coming to my home in the night, shouting, waking my family?’ His words sound strong, but his voice is shaking.

  ‘Have you given guns to the natives, Churchman?’

  The man speaking to him is standing on the ground now just a few feet away from Thomas. He’s huge, a foot or more taller than Thomas Milner, a long beard spilling down his front. He carries his gun as if it’s an extra appendage, whereas Thomas holds his like a strange animal that might bite him. In a fight of any sort with this man, physical or with guns, Thomas will be dead before it starts.

  ‘Guns? Me? Who tells you such lies? I’m a man of the church, a peaceful man. I give guns to no one.’ Thomas Milner is attempting bravado and failing.

  ‘Is it? But we’ve been told that the guns and gunpowder the natives used to shoot at our women and children came from you. We know you gunrunners – you come dressed in robes, carrying a Bible, but it’s only a disguise. We saw it with your predecessor Livingstone. And now we have you. You’re nothing but trouble for us – the lot of you – no kind of Christians that we’ve ever known.’

  ‘Whoever is telling you such things is trying to confuse you. Everyone knows I’m a missionary, nothing more. I take offence at your insinuations.’

  ‘You take offence at my insinuations?’ The group behind the man laughs. ‘I don’t give a fok what you take offence at. You’re supplying guns to the kaffirs. This is none of your Englishmen’s business, do you hear? What do you want here? No one wants you here. You took all the land down south; now you want to come here and start imposing your rules. Even the natives make jokes about you. They don’t want you here either. They have their own ways and you come here forcing yours onto them. Go back and preach where you’re wanted. Go back to England and leave this land to its owners; leave the battles to those with the courage to fight them, not hide behind a holy book like a coward. It’s dangerous here for your kind. Very dangerous.’

  The big man steps forward as he speaks, the three others keeping pace behind him. He’s very close to Thomas Milner now. ‘I’m giving you this courtesy only because I know you have a wife and child. You have a week. We expect you gone before a week or we’ll be back, and when we come back we won’t be so nice.’

  The four men get on their horses and leave the compound. They’re gone in seconds, and the quiet of night returns. Thomas Milner remains on the veranda holding on to the wall of the house, trying to compose himself. He’ll not turn around and let the women see how the visit has affected him; he’ll not let Beatrice see his weakness.

  Nthebolang feels a hand behind her. It’s her mother.

  ‘What has happened?’

  Nthebolang is annoyed; she can feel that the danger of this night is not over and she doesn’t want her mother caught up in it.

  ‘I said to wait in the hut, Mme. Take Elizabeth. I’ll come in a minute.’

  They leave out of the kitchen door. Nthebolang stands with Beatrice in the middle of the room.

  ‘He’s in trouble now,’ says Beatrice, hardly hiding her smile.

  ‘They demand that we leave this place,’ Thomas tells Beatrice when he comes back into the house.

  ‘Then we must go,’ she says.

  ‘Go? I can’t go. I’m making inroads; I’m having success. I’ll not leave this place until I’m transferred on promotion. I didn’t work this hard for nothing – for some uneducated Boers to come here and bully me. They know nothing. They have no proof of anything. I’m innocent. Kgosi Sechele will support me; Kuruman will support me. They have nothing against me.’

  Thomas paces back and forth, suddenly strong and fierce. Beatrice can barely hide her smirk.

  ‘Perhaps someone gave them evidence that you’re supplying Kgosi Sechele with guns,’ says Beatrice.

  Thomas’s head whips around. ‘What do you mean? How could they have any evidence when I’ve never supplied anyone with guns? How dare you say such a thing! I’m a man of God, a Christian. How could I encourage war by giving anyone guns?’

  Nthebolang stands in the darkness of the doorway between the kitchen and the main room. She sees the change in Beatrice’s face and knows she’s about to do something very dangerous.

  ‘But, Thomas, you are supplying guns to Kgosi Sechele. You know this and, more importantly, so do I.’

  ‘You? You know nothing! With whom do you think you’re dealing? You’ll learn to keep quiet and obey your husband. I would have thought by now your bushwoman ways would have been tamed. Must I beat you every day before you learn who’s the master here? You are nothing compared to me. I own you! You’ll not speak against me – ever!’

  He comes towards her, his hands in front of him ready to grab her around the neck. Beatrice stands her ground, holding her hand on the spot between her breasts. Nthebolang knows Beatrice is about to pull her knife on him. In the air of danger that fills the house, she knows Beatrice could kill him. She steps out of the darkness and stands next to Beatrice. She says nothing, but it’s enough to stop Thomas Milner, and he drops his hands.

  ‘Obey you?’ Beatrice says. ‘You’re such a stupid, weak man. Did you not notice the guns missing from one of your crates? Did you think your god took them for his holy work? I took them! Me! The stupid wild bushwoman. Yes, I took them, Reverend Milner.’

  ‘You’re lying.’ His words are hesitant, cautious.

  Beatrice reaches behind the shelf and takes out the piece of crate she collected from the cave a few hours earlier. She holds it up. ‘Am I?’

  Thomas steps back. His world shifts. Nthebolang watches as everything he assumed he controlled turns to nothing but sand which he cannot keep from slipping through his fingers.

  ‘For what purpose did you steal that and the guns? You think you’ll shoot me? You’ll hang before my body grows cold. Stupid, foul woman.’

  ‘I don’t need to shoot you, Thomas. There are many people willing to do that on my behalf. You saw them. Those men were very angry. How will they react when they see the actual guns and the packaging they came in that proves the guns used against them were indeed provided by you? I think they’ll be murderous, Reverend Milner. All I’ll need to do is stand aside and watch. You decide: Either I give them the rest of the evidence, or you do as I say. Or I could take my evidence to Bethelsdorp, if you prefer.’

  Thomas lunges at her and pushes her to the floor. Nthebolang rushes to her side but there’s no need. Beatrice is up and has her knife in her hand. Thomas Milner steps back. He looks at them with unguarded hatred. It’s hard to see the eloquent man who speaks on Sundays at his makeshift pulpit. This is the distorted face of a man full of fury, a monster. The one both Beatrice and Nthebolang know exists within Reverend Thomas Milner, even if few others do.

  ‘And you,’ Thomas says to Nthebolang, ‘you think you can do something here?’

  Nthebolang stands silently next to Beatrice, who is still holding her knife. She now runs her hand over the back of her head and looks at the blood on her fingers and smiles. It’s as if each scratch, each bruise, each drop of blood she loses because of a beating from Thomas Milner is the fuel that sustains her.

  She welcomes it.

  ‘This is what’s going to happen,’ Beatrice says. ‘You’ll give me all your money. All. And don’t be foolish; I know every place you keep your stashes. You’ve made money during your little exercise here, haven’t you, Thomas? Hold back so much as a shilling and you’ll regret your action, I can assure you. I will take the wagon, all the supplies I need, and Elizabeth. If you attempt to stop me in any way, I’ll hand over my evidence to Kuruman and to the executive in Bethelsdorp. You’ll be finished. I’ll give the last bit of evidence to the Boers. M
aybe they’ll show mercy and chase you wherever a weasel like you runs. I don’t know; they seemed very angry, though. One way or the other, you will be finished.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten I hold some evidence that could finish your dear Kamogelo,’ says Thomas, attempting to smile.

  ‘No, I have not forgotten,’ Beatrice says. ‘You will give me back my gold sovereigns and then you’ll keep quiet.’

  Thomas stands back and looks at her. He considers what she has said. ‘And what would stop me from killing you?’

  ‘Nothing. But, surely, if I’m found dead, you’ll be the first one they string up at the gallows. Do you really think your near-daily beatings of me have gone unnoticed by your dear, beloved congregation? Black eyes, purple bruises up and down my arms, bumps on my head. It really is far too hot here to wear long sleeves every day. Or had you not noticed? Not surprisingly nearly everyone in the village has – even your friend, the king. He once mentioned it. I told him the truth, that you disciplined me for misbehaving. He advised me to take more care. If I turn up dead, even your friend will know it’s you. He would likely be the one who hands you to the authorities in Cape Town. He does believe in justice.’

  Thomas Milner can take no more. He grabs her arm and punches her face. She falls to the floor. Nthebolang pushes her way in between them and he stops.

  ‘How dare you come between me and my wife? Who do you think you are?’ Thomas snaps.

  ‘I will not allow you to beat her any more,’ Nthebolang says.

  ‘So you’re part of this betrayal too?’ he asks, as if he finds it unbelievable. Had he really thought she was on his side? Nthebolang wonders.

  ‘Your business has nothing to do with me,’ Nthebolang says. ‘I don’t care what you do. But I care about Beatrice, and I’ve seen enough.’

  Neither notices Beatrice. She gets to her feet and, with a wild shout into the night, she brings her knife down across his cheek. In a flash, the cut bleeds red down his face.

  ‘Something to remember me by,’ Beatrice spits at him. She’s crouching like an animal ready to attack, the tiny sharp knife still in her hand.